Data scientists with 2 years exp can earn $200,000–$300,000 a year

Maybe the title should read: Ph.D. with 2 years exp can earn $200,000-$300,000 a year in the data science field.

There is quite a lot of school (time, money, work, ability) behind getting a doctorate. It's not like just anyone with a B.S. and a couple years experience is getting these jobs.

Here is the source: http://online.wsj.com/articles/academic-researchers-find-luc...

This is one of the lowest quality sites on the internet. Econjobrumours is a cesspit of rumour, innuendo, lies, racism and sexism. I swear it might as well be 4chan.

Worthless article. It doesn't say a thing about working conditions.

When a data scientist has to work 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year he will earn ~50 an hour.

Don't focus on money.

If data science is statistics on a Mac, one needs the coin for Retina gear and artisinal sleeve cases.

I've never seen this site until now, but it reads like a downscale version of xoxohth.

Strats (quants) can make that, but there's hard-core PhD/pedigree bigotry in a lot of financial institutions (not all). There's also false signaling. A lot of jobs are advertised as strat positions but actually in the back-office IT bonus pool. You have to know what questions to ask to flesh out whether it's a real quant job.

Data scientists (outside of finance) are in the same range of software engineers. There are thousands of programmers trying to distinguish themselves as data scientists because, in most companies, it means "software engineer with the right to work on the most interesting stuff". The title bump and the status signal that it implies (no story-pointing meetings for me, I'm a data scientist) are, alone, enough to motivate people, given market conditions.